FEATURES
The (Cyber) Cow Whisperer

by Marcia Passos Duffy

A gentle, high-tech approach to moving cattle

PHOTOS BY SCOTT BAUER. Technician Roy Libeau, left, and Dean Anderson place a neck saddle containing the prototype virtual fence system on a cow.

When Dean Anderson wants a stubborn cow to move, he doesn’t reach for a cattle prod. Instead, he adjusts his Walkman-like headset and whispers commands into the microphone, such as “gee” (go right) or “haw” (go left). The words are bounced off a satellite and beamed back down to the cow’s electronic collar, where it hears the command, listens and responds.

Anderson, an animal scientist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is studying ways to “steer” cattle using global positioning system (GPS) technology that allows the farmer or rancher to find cows using a computer, give auditory commands and remotely herd cows into a corral.

The system also serves as a virtual fence, a technology that Anderson patented as Directional Virtual Fencing, a computerized look at where the cow should be in comparison to where the cow actually is. The system signals to a cow—much like an electronic dog fence—when it is approaching an area where it shouldn’t be.

The initial cues to make the cow move are benign, like a whisper, but can be ramped up to a 747 jet, said Anderson. The louder sounds can include sirens and planes, and the collar, powered by a battery, can give a mild electric shock if necessary (similar to those in electric dog collars).

While the technology is still in its research phase and is prohibitively expensive for the average farmer (the hand-constructed devices Anderson uses cost between $600 and $1,000 each), it is possible for a manufacturer to mass-produce a smaller device that Anderson says will cost in the “two-digit” range per device, “more than $10, but much less than $99,” he estimated. He added that his research is now focusing on how to use dominant cows to control the entire herd.

“There may not be a need to outfit an entire herd with these devices,” said Anderson. “Farmers may be willing to pay for this technology if they only had to buy collars for, say, 13 percent of the herd,” he said.

Craig Hale, left, of Future Segue, and Animal Scientist Dean Anderson examine the prototype virtual fence device they invented. Audio cues generated from the device tell the cattle which way to move.

A farmer could use this technology to save time and money on building, moving and mending fences, said Anderson, a huge expense, particularly for ranchers who need large swaths of land for grazing animals. According to data collected by Anderson in 1998, conventional fencing costs $1,200 to $14,000 per mile. Half of the cost of fencing is labor, which increases when you have terrain not suitable for fencing, such as up mountains or rocky terrain. A virtual fence can be placed wherever there is good food for the cows and allows the herd to improve foraging without the need for constant farmer presence or fencing.

Application for dairy farms

While the technology is still in its testing phase at the ARS Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, N.M., a sprawling 193,000-acre research beef cattle facility, the potential for its use in other livestock applications has piqued the interest of dairy farmers.

This technology would work hand-in-glove with pasture-fed cows and automatic/robotic milking parlors. Anderson’s “cow whisperer” technology can be used to remotely call in cows for milking via automatic milking systems. “Farmers can spend more time thinking and managing their plant and animal resources instead of opening and closing fences,” he said. He added that dairy cow management using the technology has not yet been tested.

Stubborn cows

Some cows will not respond to even the sound of a 747 plane or an electric shock. In those cases, Anderson says that there are other ways to accomplish a farmer’s management goals without undue stress to the animal.

“If an animal breaks through a [virtual fence] boundary on Tuesday, it will need water on Wednesday and it will have to come back ... the farmer can use ‘animal time’ to accomplish management goals,” said Anderson. “What we are trying to study is how to take the innate animal behaviors and capitalize them and create efficient management.”

He pointed out that virtual fences do not eliminate the need for real fences, particularly because there will always be the errant cow who will not heed commands. Farmers would still want a conventional fence where animals absolutely cannot go.

Farmer or computer geek?

Would this kind of technology make the farmer more of an IT manager than a farmer? This does concern Anderson, who says that this can lead to a “hands- off” method of farming.

“There is no substitute for knowledgeable farmers who can look at the data and then go out in the field and see what reality really is,” said Anderson.

“I think we can be much better stewards of our landscape and ecology if we use these high-tech tools and the power of the human brain to figure out how we can become better managers,” said Anderson. “It is like giving us a third arm.”

Technology opens up opportunities for “flerds”

Another area that Anderson has been exploring with his “cow whisperer” technology is grazing multiple species together on one pasture, a useful technique in the Northeast where farmland is relatively small.

Putting cows and sheep together in his experiment led to surprising results, not only for keeping the herd and flock together (“flerd”), but offering protection for the sheep without a guard dog.

When these animals are socialized together early in life, the cows will tolerate the presence of the sheep and the sheep will follow the cows. If the cows have electronic collars to keep them in a pasture, there is no need to have collars on the sheep since the flock will follow the herd.

An added benefit is protection from predators. When cows are threatened by a predator, they will face the predator. Add sheep to the mix, and the flock will huddle inside the ring of cows, which offers them protection.

Challenges to overcome

The biggest challenge with the research at the moment, said Anderson, is efficiently powering the electronic collars. While solar power works great in sunny New Mexico, it wouldn’t work as well on Northeast farms under cloud cover.

One approach would be to use the cow’s movement and convert that into electricity, an area of research that Anderson will be exploring. There is technology today for this kind of conversion, said Anderson.

The devices being tested in New Mexico are also large and bulky, but researchers are working to make the collars smaller. At some point they may even be sized down to a quarter, or small enough to be embedded in the cow’s ear.

While controlling a herd of cattle with a computer may seem far-fetched, Anderson said that it may become necessary in the future.

“Our world only has a limited amount of rangeland ... how are we going to manage it? If we capitalize on technology to accomplish better animal husbandry and take better care of the land ... it will be a win-win,” he said.

Technology, however, is not the silver bullet, Anderson warned. “We can’t take humans out of the equation ... but we need to make sure we are using technology to optimize the ecology of our resources.”

The author is a freelance writer from Keene, N.H. Comment or question? Visit www.farmingforumsite.com and join in the discussions.